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Nietzsche as a prophet of our time, by Vladimir Mozhegov, publicist, for VZGLYAD. 10.15.2024.
October 15 marks the 180th anniversary of the birth of the man who proclaimed "the death of God." Were there figures to match him? Who could give a non-vulgar judgment about him, which he himself would have accepted about himself? Yes, there were. And if we could ask him, he would probably name them first. Who is it? First, Dostoevsky, second, Christ.
The most famous Nietzsche in Russia is, of course, Nietzsche the Antichrist, the "blond beast", the superman, the forerunner of Nazism. But this is, perhaps, the most fictional, the most mythical Nietzsche of all. Nietzsche was not an idol of National Socialist Germany. To understand why, it is enough to read his caustic texts, full of caustic sarcasm, directed against German nationalism. A man who declared war on everything German, who demonstratively renounced German (Prussian) citizenship and even German blood, who seriously declared himself a Pole: “I am a purebred Polish nobleman, without a single drop of dirty blood, of course, without German blood” (even though there is no evidence of Nietzsche’s Polish origins), and who also made friends with Jews (Lou Salome was his only love, Dr. Paul Ree was one of his last friends) – could such a man be an idol of the National Socialists? Of course, he was honoured like any other German genius, but that’s all. So Nietzsche the Nazi is a historical fake; like the “blond beast”.
The real foundation of National Socialism was not Nietzscheanism at all, but right-wing Hegelianism. True, we preferred to remain silent about the latter. After all, it is not far from right-wing Hegelianism to left-wing. And the Communists were left-wing Hegelians. That is why the National Socialists turned into “Nietzscheans” and simply “Nazis” (the word “socialism”, like “Hegelian”, also turned out to be reserved). And for a joke about the dispute between left-wing and right-wing Hegelians in Stalingrad, one could end up in prison.
Today, however, there is a Nietzsche for every taste. Mussolini, the Bolsheviks (Lunacharsky, Bogdanov), the anarchists (Gustav Landauer), the Freudo-Marxists (Adorno, Horkheimer), and Carl Jung all called him their own. Today, the most popular Nietzsche is the precursor of existentialism (Camus) and postmodernism (Derrida).
There is an even more surprising Nietzsche the liberal. Indeed, he valued the human personality above all else, valuing above all else the independence of man in disregard for all values imposed by society from the outside. In which he really resembled Rousseau with his "happy savage". But Nietzsche himself was not a "happy savage". His Dionysus was a tragic figure. Next to whom Rousseau and the whole company of enlighteners looked more like that same rabble of "last men" hated by Nietzsche, who "blink their eyes and do not understand".
The same can be said about his other privatizers. Nietzsche was indeed a revolutionary, but he spoke most of all about overcoming anarchism and nihilism, and he could not stand the rebellious rabble that the communists worshiped. He even hated Christianity because, in his opinion, it killed the spirit of high antiquity.
So if anyone came closer to the real Nietzsche than others, it was, of course, the traditionalists. Those same classical Guenon, Evola and the like. They, in any case, did not try to stretch Nietzsche's owl onto the globe of their stunted ideology, but followed him and accepted him as he was - a man who declared war on the entire modern world, on all, you see, "progress", with such inimitable fury that not only Christianity, but also Plato and Socrates were swept away by it (after all, it was because of him, Socrates and his friends, the urban rabble, that Tragedy and Tradition perished!). Yes, Nietzsche's ideal was not even Athens, but Sparta (with its rank and hierarchy), and of course, its strict gods, and not even gods, but - supermen!
Yes, that's how it was. But neither Guenon, nor Evola, nor even more so their epigones were, alas, either those poets of all-conquering power, nor the manifest tragedy of existence, which Nietzsche himself was. And therefore they could not help but find themselves in approximately the same position as those we have already passed: that is, they could not help but vulgarize Nietzsche...
Very well. In that case, were there figures to match him? Those with whom he could feel himself on an equal footing, who could give him a non-vulgar judgment, which he himself would have accepted about himself? Yes, there were. And if we could ask him, he would probably name them first. Who were they? First, Dostoevsky, second, Christ. The first is the one whom Nietzsche himself called his double. The second, about whom he once remarked: in essence, there was only one true Christian - and he was crucified. He, a man extremely proud, but in no way arrogant, treated these two seriously. Towards the first with delight, sometimes turning into worship (the only living soul in the whole wide world with whom, as he himself felt, he had something to talk about!). Towards the second... Now that is a very difficult topic.
Because we have already answered the question "who is Nietzsche" in general: a poet. A great and tragic poet. But the main thing is a real poet, one who is able to experience the tragedy of the era as his own: "If the world splits, the crack will go through the poet's heart," Heine noted. This is precisely the poet Nietzsche was. His era killed God. And "The Death of God" became his personal tragedy.
…And I will never believe,
That death will be behind the door
, Someday, tart, waiting for me:
That, buried somewhere in a grave,
I
will no longer drain the fragrant drink of life!
Oh, happiness, don’t abandon me!
(translated by K. Svasyan)
– thus wrote the fourteen-year-old Nietzsche. The mature Nietzsche, through the mouth of the “madman” from “The Gay Science,” exclaimed: “Where is God? … We have killed him – you and I! We are all his murderers! … God is dead! God will not rise again! And we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, murderers of murderers! The most holy and powerful Being that ever was in the world bled to death under our knives – who will wash this blood off us?” … Apparently, when Nietzsche shouted these words from the depths of his heart, that “real, non-calendar twentieth century,” “the century of the death of God,” about which he prophesied, began. Because, of course, he was not only a poet, but also a prophet.
Nietzsche was born on October 15, 1844. He suffered a stroke 45 years later, in January 1889, and died 11 years later, in August 1900, of complete oblivion… And another 45 years later, in August 1945, the nuclear hurricane that destroyed Hiroshima heralded the beginning of a new, apocalyptic world. Exactly 45 years after the death of the man who proclaimed the “death of God”… And in these bizarre dances of numbers and rhymes of history is the poetry of Nietzsche the prophet.
It was not Nietzsche who affirmed the "death of God." His entire century affirmed it with every word and deed. Nietzsche only had the honesty, courage, and strength to accept, pronounce, and experience the entire eschatological tragedy of a fact that his time had indifferently passed by, almost without noticing its loss. If this civilization does not need God, then who needs this civilization? It was his personal death, his personal grief, with which he never reconciled himself.
God died? Died and did not rise again? And what about me? Will I also die and not rise again? Behind all of Nietzsche’s furious attacks on culture, Christianity, the very beginnings of European civilization, there is the same enormous, unheard-of, unbearable, heaven-stopping insult: He died and did not rise again! And behind all the overthrows of idols, gods, values of this decadent civilization, which calmly, as if nothing had happened, continues to live with this most terrible of losses, there is one desperate hope: what if something survives? And God rises again? After all, only something unshakable, eternal can survive…
They say that great saints and great criminals are made of the same stuff. Nietzsche's enormous soul was undoubtedly called to holiness. But in that new, godless world in which he lived, there was no place for holiness. And he became a great criminal (apostate), trying to make God speak, to rise again: a self-proclaimed antichrist, trying to shout to Christ.
You have given me so much pain and so much soul to contain this pain, and so much intelligence to comprehend it all – why? Are you a monster? Are you the devil? In this endless resentment (resentment is his favorite word) and endless insults with which he showers God, he seems to strike sparks of his impossible faith. In essence, Nietzsche’s whole life is one desperate cry to God: Resurrection! One endless thirst for faith and its unattainability.
"Only by plunging into ever new torments did he escape his suffering," notes Lou Salomé. "Anyone who has ever built a new heaven has found the strength to do so only in his own hell," Nietzsche himself writes in The Genealogy of Morals.
From here, it seems, grows his Superman. For if the death of God has knocked at the gates of the new age, who else can have the spirit and strength to bear such a loss? And isn't this what he ultimately wants: to grow into a Superman, so that, reaching out to God, he can shout into His ears his unheard-of insult:
...fierce hunter,
you unknown - God...
Wound me deeper,
wound me as before!
Pierce, strike my heart!...
You are a tormentor god!...
Sting me!
The fiercest sting!
Let me in my loneliness...
thirst at least for an enemy...
(Dithyrambs to Dionysus, Ariadne's Complaints, trans. Mikushevich)
Nietzsche, standing on the edge of the abyss and looking where few had looked before him, desperately needed God. Just like Dostoevsky. But Dostoevsky, going through his crises, forced himself to believe: “to believe that there is nothing more beautiful, deeper, more sympathetic, more reasonable, more courageous and more perfect than Christ.” Nietzsche found a way out in an equally passionate denial. Striking, yes – sparks of faith from his despair…
"Keep your mind in hell and do not despair," said the prophet of the twentieth century. If Nietzsche had humbled his indomitable spirit for just a moment and listened (and he listened attentively to Dostoevsky), he might have heard this quiet voice of the resurrected God...
https://vz.ru/opinions/2024/10/15/1292341.html
October 15 marks the 180th anniversary of the birth of the man who proclaimed "the death of God." Were there figures to match him? Who could give a non-vulgar judgment about him, which he himself would have accepted about himself? Yes, there were. And if we could ask him, he would probably name them first. Who is it? First, Dostoevsky, second, Christ.
The most famous Nietzsche in Russia is, of course, Nietzsche the Antichrist, the "blond beast", the superman, the forerunner of Nazism. But this is, perhaps, the most fictional, the most mythical Nietzsche of all. Nietzsche was not an idol of National Socialist Germany. To understand why, it is enough to read his caustic texts, full of caustic sarcasm, directed against German nationalism. A man who declared war on everything German, who demonstratively renounced German (Prussian) citizenship and even German blood, who seriously declared himself a Pole: “I am a purebred Polish nobleman, without a single drop of dirty blood, of course, without German blood” (even though there is no evidence of Nietzsche’s Polish origins), and who also made friends with Jews (Lou Salome was his only love, Dr. Paul Ree was one of his last friends) – could such a man be an idol of the National Socialists? Of course, he was honoured like any other German genius, but that’s all. So Nietzsche the Nazi is a historical fake; like the “blond beast”.
The real foundation of National Socialism was not Nietzscheanism at all, but right-wing Hegelianism. True, we preferred to remain silent about the latter. After all, it is not far from right-wing Hegelianism to left-wing. And the Communists were left-wing Hegelians. That is why the National Socialists turned into “Nietzscheans” and simply “Nazis” (the word “socialism”, like “Hegelian”, also turned out to be reserved). And for a joke about the dispute between left-wing and right-wing Hegelians in Stalingrad, one could end up in prison.
Today, however, there is a Nietzsche for every taste. Mussolini, the Bolsheviks (Lunacharsky, Bogdanov), the anarchists (Gustav Landauer), the Freudo-Marxists (Adorno, Horkheimer), and Carl Jung all called him their own. Today, the most popular Nietzsche is the precursor of existentialism (Camus) and postmodernism (Derrida).
There is an even more surprising Nietzsche the liberal. Indeed, he valued the human personality above all else, valuing above all else the independence of man in disregard for all values imposed by society from the outside. In which he really resembled Rousseau with his "happy savage". But Nietzsche himself was not a "happy savage". His Dionysus was a tragic figure. Next to whom Rousseau and the whole company of enlighteners looked more like that same rabble of "last men" hated by Nietzsche, who "blink their eyes and do not understand".
The same can be said about his other privatizers. Nietzsche was indeed a revolutionary, but he spoke most of all about overcoming anarchism and nihilism, and he could not stand the rebellious rabble that the communists worshiped. He even hated Christianity because, in his opinion, it killed the spirit of high antiquity.
So if anyone came closer to the real Nietzsche than others, it was, of course, the traditionalists. Those same classical Guenon, Evola and the like. They, in any case, did not try to stretch Nietzsche's owl onto the globe of their stunted ideology, but followed him and accepted him as he was - a man who declared war on the entire modern world, on all, you see, "progress", with such inimitable fury that not only Christianity, but also Plato and Socrates were swept away by it (after all, it was because of him, Socrates and his friends, the urban rabble, that Tragedy and Tradition perished!). Yes, Nietzsche's ideal was not even Athens, but Sparta (with its rank and hierarchy), and of course, its strict gods, and not even gods, but - supermen!
Yes, that's how it was. But neither Guenon, nor Evola, nor even more so their epigones were, alas, either those poets of all-conquering power, nor the manifest tragedy of existence, which Nietzsche himself was. And therefore they could not help but find themselves in approximately the same position as those we have already passed: that is, they could not help but vulgarize Nietzsche...
Very well. In that case, were there figures to match him? Those with whom he could feel himself on an equal footing, who could give him a non-vulgar judgment, which he himself would have accepted about himself? Yes, there were. And if we could ask him, he would probably name them first. Who were they? First, Dostoevsky, second, Christ. The first is the one whom Nietzsche himself called his double. The second, about whom he once remarked: in essence, there was only one true Christian - and he was crucified. He, a man extremely proud, but in no way arrogant, treated these two seriously. Towards the first with delight, sometimes turning into worship (the only living soul in the whole wide world with whom, as he himself felt, he had something to talk about!). Towards the second... Now that is a very difficult topic.
Because we have already answered the question "who is Nietzsche" in general: a poet. A great and tragic poet. But the main thing is a real poet, one who is able to experience the tragedy of the era as his own: "If the world splits, the crack will go through the poet's heart," Heine noted. This is precisely the poet Nietzsche was. His era killed God. And "The Death of God" became his personal tragedy.
…And I will never believe,
That death will be behind the door
, Someday, tart, waiting for me:
That, buried somewhere in a grave,
I
will no longer drain the fragrant drink of life!
Oh, happiness, don’t abandon me!
(translated by K. Svasyan)
– thus wrote the fourteen-year-old Nietzsche. The mature Nietzsche, through the mouth of the “madman” from “The Gay Science,” exclaimed: “Where is God? … We have killed him – you and I! We are all his murderers! … God is dead! God will not rise again! And we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, murderers of murderers! The most holy and powerful Being that ever was in the world bled to death under our knives – who will wash this blood off us?” … Apparently, when Nietzsche shouted these words from the depths of his heart, that “real, non-calendar twentieth century,” “the century of the death of God,” about which he prophesied, began. Because, of course, he was not only a poet, but also a prophet.
Nietzsche was born on October 15, 1844. He suffered a stroke 45 years later, in January 1889, and died 11 years later, in August 1900, of complete oblivion… And another 45 years later, in August 1945, the nuclear hurricane that destroyed Hiroshima heralded the beginning of a new, apocalyptic world. Exactly 45 years after the death of the man who proclaimed the “death of God”… And in these bizarre dances of numbers and rhymes of history is the poetry of Nietzsche the prophet.
It was not Nietzsche who affirmed the "death of God." His entire century affirmed it with every word and deed. Nietzsche only had the honesty, courage, and strength to accept, pronounce, and experience the entire eschatological tragedy of a fact that his time had indifferently passed by, almost without noticing its loss. If this civilization does not need God, then who needs this civilization? It was his personal death, his personal grief, with which he never reconciled himself.
God died? Died and did not rise again? And what about me? Will I also die and not rise again? Behind all of Nietzsche’s furious attacks on culture, Christianity, the very beginnings of European civilization, there is the same enormous, unheard-of, unbearable, heaven-stopping insult: He died and did not rise again! And behind all the overthrows of idols, gods, values of this decadent civilization, which calmly, as if nothing had happened, continues to live with this most terrible of losses, there is one desperate hope: what if something survives? And God rises again? After all, only something unshakable, eternal can survive…
They say that great saints and great criminals are made of the same stuff. Nietzsche's enormous soul was undoubtedly called to holiness. But in that new, godless world in which he lived, there was no place for holiness. And he became a great criminal (apostate), trying to make God speak, to rise again: a self-proclaimed antichrist, trying to shout to Christ.
You have given me so much pain and so much soul to contain this pain, and so much intelligence to comprehend it all – why? Are you a monster? Are you the devil? In this endless resentment (resentment is his favorite word) and endless insults with which he showers God, he seems to strike sparks of his impossible faith. In essence, Nietzsche’s whole life is one desperate cry to God: Resurrection! One endless thirst for faith and its unattainability.
"Only by plunging into ever new torments did he escape his suffering," notes Lou Salomé. "Anyone who has ever built a new heaven has found the strength to do so only in his own hell," Nietzsche himself writes in The Genealogy of Morals.
From here, it seems, grows his Superman. For if the death of God has knocked at the gates of the new age, who else can have the spirit and strength to bear such a loss? And isn't this what he ultimately wants: to grow into a Superman, so that, reaching out to God, he can shout into His ears his unheard-of insult:
...fierce hunter,
you unknown - God...
Wound me deeper,
wound me as before!
Pierce, strike my heart!...
You are a tormentor god!...
Sting me!
The fiercest sting!
Let me in my loneliness...
thirst at least for an enemy...
(Dithyrambs to Dionysus, Ariadne's Complaints, trans. Mikushevich)
Nietzsche, standing on the edge of the abyss and looking where few had looked before him, desperately needed God. Just like Dostoevsky. But Dostoevsky, going through his crises, forced himself to believe: “to believe that there is nothing more beautiful, deeper, more sympathetic, more reasonable, more courageous and more perfect than Christ.” Nietzsche found a way out in an equally passionate denial. Striking, yes – sparks of faith from his despair…
"Keep your mind in hell and do not despair," said the prophet of the twentieth century. If Nietzsche had humbled his indomitable spirit for just a moment and listened (and he listened attentively to Dostoevsky), he might have heard this quiet voice of the resurrected God...
https://vz.ru/opinions/2024/10/15/1292341.html
